Child Support Payment- An Individual's Circumstances have Changed

Where the Child Support Agency has made a determination in terms of the amount of contribution by the employed father/mother and in particular, the individual's circumstances have changed.

Obviously the Child Support Agency has carried out an initial assessment based on based on his or her employment circumstances and earnings and has made a determination as to how much child support income is to be paid based on that. The only way that can be appealed is that an application needs to be made to the Registrar of the Child Support Agency for a departure from the administrative assessment.

Appealing the Decision in Court

It is only once the Registrar makes a decision that you have the option of appealing that decision to the Courts. It is important to note that no application can be made to the Courts without first having had the matter go through an administrative assessment by the Registrar. In making the administrative assessment the Registrar and the Courts taking into account various and numerous matters including but not exhaustive to the income, financial resources, financial capacity and property of the parties.

This is relevant where the person making the contributions has other relevant children to support from another marriage etc or the caring parent has a great deal of resources.

Relevancy of the Child Support Assessment Act

The relevant Act is the Child Support Assessment Act. This is a fairly complex Act and running an appeal for a Departure Order in Court requires a lot of work going into ascertaining a lot of the financial details of the parties.

Notwithstanding any subsequent orders a Court may make, the parent paying child support is obliged to continue to pay the assessed figure until the Court makes an order or temporarily changes it to vary that amount. Failure by the parent to pay the assessed figure can result in enforcement proceedings being taken.